Plans for the Linnahall arena that is currently standing empty in the port area of Tallinn call for transforming it into an orchestra hall with up to 5,300 seats that would be among the biggest in nearby countries, as well as a conference center, acting mayor of Tallinn Taavi Aas said on Friday.

“5,300 seats is not final. When the specifications for the design have been set out, we can tell the architect the number. Everything depends on what the hall will look like - whether it’s possible at all to get the kind of acoustics there that we’d like," Aas told BNS.

Aas said the building was big enough to also house a conference center.

The chairman of the supervisory board of Linnahall, Meelis Pai, told BNS that multifunctionality was extremely important in this region. “Conference tourism is one of the engines of growth for Estonia,” Pai said.

Speaking at the same news briefing on Friday, Neeme Järvi, artistic director of the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, said that a new orchestra hall was necessary because the symphony orchestra was working in cramped conditions now.

“We have to build a temple of classical music,” Järvi said. The conductor added that while the Nordea concert hall was nice to look at, it was lacking acoustically.

Renowned acoustic Yasuhisa Toyota meanwhile said that the eventual number of seats depended on what the structure would make possible. He described the way seats are arranged in the big hall of Linnahall as good, but added that apparently the ceiling needed to be rebuilt.

The entertainment and sports arena in the portside area of the Estonian capital with a seating capacity of 4,200, designed by Estonian architect Raine Karp, was completed in time for the sailing events in Tallinn of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.